


People-Watching

by Karartegirl99



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Meet-Cute, Monsters in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karartegirl99/pseuds/Karartegirl99
Summary: What if I were a Stranger avatar, and you were an Eye avatar, and we rode the metro together (and we’re both girls)?Alternate title: The Rewards of Being Loved
Kudos: 11





	People-Watching

Friday night was feeding night. Ainsel wasn’t sure she needed to sleep, but she took an afternoon nap anyway, since she wouldn’t be home until late, if she came home at all. She woke just after sunset to put on her face, and as usual, she did a poor job of it. It was counter-productive to look human on feeding night, so she took no pains to hide how large her eyes were, how thin her lips, how flat her cheeks. You couldn’t see pores, not because she was covering them, but because she didn’t have them. She threw on something unnervingly form-fitting and left the apartment.

The metro would be crowded, but not so crowded that she’d go unnoticed. This time of day, it would be a blend of people going home from work and people heading out to enjoy a night on the town. With any luck, they would all be traveling alone. Last week, she’d ridden in a car with a group of drunk friends, and they really killed her vibe. Humans are harder to scare when they travel in packs.

Which is what made the metro such great hunting grounds, really. Most of Ainsel’s kind insisted on getting humans completely alone so they could be easily attacked, but Ainsel knew that all you _really_ needed was a group of humans who didn’t know each other. (It helped that that was Ainsel’s thing: Not Knowing each other.) There’s already a baseline uneasiness on public transportation, and if you play it right, you won’t need to hurt anybody at all. They’re strangers trapped in a car with a Stranger, for God’s sake. Spend enough time “forgetting” to breathe, and their imaginations do the rest of the work for you.

Ainsel boarded her first train for the evening with a hungry sense of anticipation. It was all she could do to keep her expression blank. She walked down the aisle, ignoring several empty pairs of seats, and sat down next to someone. This was blatantly against metro etiquette, but wouldn’t you know, it’s also against metro etiquette to call someone out on it. So the person sitting next to Ainsel had no choice but to scooch closer to the window and try very hard to pretend that she wasn’t there.

Already, she could feel tension building among the other passengers. Someone even took out their earbuds, which was always a good sign. It meant she was registering as a threat, and though it had a ways to go before becoming full-blown fear, it was still delicious, like the empty sweetness of chewing gum. She settled back to enjoy the ride.

Several stops and several appetizers in, someone boarded who caught her attention. Humans didn’t normally catch her attention, but this one was so blatantly looking at her. She had sky-grey eyes, and when they met Ainsel’s they widened with a delicious fear that sent a thrill down Ainsel’s spine. The human looked away—she had to, to see where she was going—but Ainsel got the feeling that as soon as she was seated somewhere behind her, she was right back to staring.

Ainsel didn’t usually get a meal so _easily._ It usually took some time before people noticed her enough to fear her. But this human was not only observant, it seemed she couldn’t look away. Ainsel could taste her deer-in-headlights gaze on the back of her head, and she wasn’t even actively doing anything to frighten her yet. If things kept up like this, she’d earn a month’s worth of fear in a matter of minutes.

After several minutes of being stared at, however, Ainsel began to feel a bit uneasy herself. There was such a thing as too much attention, and it was starting to feel like she was being dissected, analyzed and categorized until there wasn’t anything left to be afraid of. Still, she refused to turn to make eye contact. With any luck, the human would get off on the next stop. If not, well, the night was young. Ainsel could move into another car and start over with a new, less _attentive_ group of prey.

By the time the train pulled into a station, Ainsel’s nerves were fraying like cheap dental floss. She stepped out onto the platform and into the next car, where she let herself slump into a corner seat. There were less people in this car, and none of them were quite afraid of her yet, but Ainsel figured she could use the break. She was just pulling out her phone when the human from before entered and took the seat next to her.

Up close, the woman’s eyes were even more piercing. They were the stillest part of her face, and Ainsel almost considered complimenting how inhuman they looked. The woman watched silently for a few moments before she asked, “Can I ask you a weirdly personal question?”

“I guess?” said Ainsel. “Just don’t expect me to give you an answer.”

The woman nodded. She looked around to make sure no one was listening, and Ainsel found herself grateful to be free of her eyes, even for a moment. But then she was looking at Ainsel again, and in a near-whisper she asked, “You’re not a normal person, are you?”

Despite the unusual circumstances, Ainsel laughed. “What gave it away?”

The corner of the woman’s mouth twitched. “Might I ask what you are?”

“You certainly might. There’s not really an answer to that, though.”

“Well, what do you call yourself?”

“Ainsel.”

“I’m Erika.”

The air between them was lighter now that they’d been introduced (as much as Ainsel can ever be introduced) but they still didn’t let themselves get too comfortable. Ainsel couldn’t shake the feeling she was being studied. Humans were infamous for that sort of thing, after all. If anyone could study a Stranger until they were no longer Strange, it would be a human, with their unrelenting curiosity. This human could be her undoing. This time tomorrow, Ainsel might have her own Wikipedia page, and everyone would know she wasn’t worth being scared of. Ainsel pushed the thought aside and tried to focus on the way Erika’s muscles quivered with fear. She reminded herself that humans, like wild animals, were more afraid of you than you are of them.

Erika laughed nervously. “I’m not human.”

Oh, fuck.

“That would explain the eyes,” Ainsel said. “I suppose I can tell you that you’re doing a fine job with them.”

Erika considered her for a moment. “It’s strange—”

“It is.” 

“It’s just, usually the more I look at someone the more I can learn about them. But all I’m getting off of you is that you’re not human, and that you’re afraid of me.” Erika blinked slowly, for what may have been the first time all evening. “You...said you liked my eyes?”

Ainsel had to tread carefully here. She didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that either of them were fear-eating monsters; it would mean confirming the information Erika already had, and for a Stranger like Ainsel, any exchange of information was already a display of weakness. She looked for some other excuse. “Your eyes look very human, is all.”

“Now, I don’t need to be able to See you to know _that’s_ a lie. They’re the least human thing about me.” She leaned in. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it? You _are_ afraid of my eyes, Ainsel. That’s why you admire them. They’re that perfect level of uncanny that you so aspire to reach.”

Ainsel did _not_ like where this was going. Erika may not have been properly reading her mind anymore, but she was still lowercase-l-looking at her, and Ainsel felt far too known for her liking. This wasn’t a fear she’d felt before, and she wasn’t sure she enjoyed being put on a platter for it. The only thing that made it bearable was that Erika was feeding fear to her in return. (It also helped that the few other passengers in the car were still giving off a background radiation of terror, too.)

Erika finally blinked and looked away. “Um, thank you. For complimenting my eyes, and for, letting me feed, I guess?”

“Don’t mention it,” said Ainsel, trying to make it sound like a threat.

“Your eyes are cool, too,” Erika muttered. “I like the way the irises don’t contract. Did you, um. Did you grow them yourself?”

Ainsel frowned, but she could tell from the rapidly lowering temperature in her cheeks that she must be blushing.

Erika noticed and asked, “What’s your blood made of? It’s the wrong color for iron.”

This only made Ainsel blush harder. “You ask too many questions.”

“Sorry,” said Erika, and she must have meant it, because she looked away again. “I’m not normally like this. It’s just, like I said, my powers don’t work so well on you, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

Ainsel could tell. The air was sweet with Erika’s confusion and panic. It was much more filling than what Ainsel would get from normal humans, and she wondered, briefly, if she might somehow choke on it.

They sat in silence for a while. Several people boarded at the next stop, and Erika turned to assess the new crop of victims. Her eyes flitted between them for a while before returning to Ainsel, who was infinitely more interesting than a human could ever be. After several stations had passed, she said, “You too, huh?”

“Hmm?” said Ainsel.

“You don’t know how to handle meeting another monster. You’re not used to someone looking at you so intensely, just like I’m not used to having someone so bizarre to look at.”

“Stop reading my mind!”

“I didn’t, it’s just your fear is so... heady.”

Ainsel, to her disgrace, was back to blushing. She quickly looked out the window. “We’re gonna gorge ourselves to death on each other, huh?”

Erika laughed.

They rode to the end of the line. This wasn’t a very efficient feeding strategy, as the crowds didn’t come all the way out here, but Ainsel didn’t want to switch trains and risk losing Erika’s company. When the announcement came on that the train would be going out of service, Erika turned to her and said, “I’ve always wanted to see what’ll happen if I don’t get off.”

Ainsel snorted. “They’d lock us in here.”

“But maybe the conductor will have to come drag us out himself. I say we wait in the dark and give whoever finds us a scare.”

Spoken like a true Stranger, Ainsel thought proudly. It was weird how different their powers were, yet how similarly they fed. She quickly agreed, and the two of them positioned themselves so that they could be easily seen from the platform.

It turns out the conductor had better things to do than check for stragglers, but after a few minutes a janitor poked their head in to ask them to leave. Ainsel stayed stock-still and Erika stared back unblinkingly, and the janitor’s face went ashen. They left without a word, and Ainsel and Erika just barely managed to contain their laughter until after the janitor was already out of sight.

It would be twenty minutes before a train left going the other direction, but they didn’t have anywhere else to be. They took a seat on a platform bench and listened to the muffled hum of passing cars.

“Do you think you could pass for human?” Erika asked. “If you wanted to, I mean.”

“I think so.” Ainsel was swinging her legs at an angle and speed most people couldn’t manage. “What would be the fun in that, though? Do you _know_ how many people can pass for human? Like, all of them! All of the humans!”

Erika thought for a moment. “Do you think _I_ could pass for human?”

“Well, you managed to fool me, didn’t you?”

Erika shot her a mischievous grin. “That doesn’t mean much, though.”

“Rude!”

As more people gathered to wait on the platform, they tried to keep the monster-talk to a minimum. They were about as successful at this as two schoolgirls trying to keep from passing notes. Whenever a particularly paranoid human would show up, Erika would point them out, and she and Ainsel would giggle under their breaths as they came up with different ways they could freak that person out. Erika’s voice would raise when she got excited, and there was lots of hysterical shushing on Ainsel’s part.

It was no surprise that when the next train was ready to leave, no one would board the same car as them. “It’s all your fault,” Erika playfully scolded. “You wouldn’t stop talking about eating that woman’s newspaper.”

“The look on her face when she heard me say that was almost as good as it would’ve been if I’d gotten the chance to do it,” Ainsel said.

Ainsel couldn’t feel Erika’s fear anymore. The unearthly pressure from her gaze was still there, but it now felt no worse than the intimacy of holding hands. Fuck it, why not? Ainsel took Erika’s hand in hers before she could think better of it. Erika shivered, but after a moment she squeezed her hand back.

“There’s a night district not far from the next stop,” Erika said with a forced casualness. “Lots of interesting sights and sounds. People, drunk people, easy targets, but we don’t have to, um, eat if you don’t want...”

Ainsel faked a gasp in the wrong direction. “Erika, are you asking me out to dinner?”

A blush crept up Erika’s face. “I was thinking we could go dancing, actually?”

“Even better! I could always go for a good dance.”

Erika’s blush was as dark as an apple now. “Yeah, I Know.”

“Oh, of course you do.”

Arm-in-arm, they stepped off at the next station. Heads turned as they made their way out towards the glow of the city’s nightlife. Every human they passed was desperately pretending not to stare at them, but Ainsel and Erika didn’t even notice—they only had eyes for each other.


End file.
